Nelufar Hedayat is a journalist and presenter whose work focuses on environmental issues and cultural upheaval. Born in Afghanistan, she came to Britain as a refugee which has shaped her work, creating a unique point of view and a passion for telling the stories of fringe and marginalized communities. Her work connects with a global audience and is immersive and impact driven, often shining a light on the consequences of our actions and challenging our perceptions of the world. She has created a body of work across both sides of the Atlantic with British and American broadcasters, from self-authored returnable series to guest hosting alongside Morgan Freeman, for the likes of Nat Geo, Doha Debates, Vice, Fusion, The Guardian, and the BBC, that is empathetic, pioneering, and insightful.
Drawn to stories of people going through intense and life changing situations due to her own experience as a refugee, at the start of her career Nelufar became fascinated with how her story and countless others like hers were being portrayed in the press and how the real people, who were impacted directly by the conflicts and upheaval, were often forgotten about. This unique point of view enables Nelufar to approach topics without preconceived opinions or judgements and follow societies in flux, communities navigating evolving relationships with technology and questions of identity and faith.
The returnable 8-part series The Traffickers (Fusion/Netflix), saw her travel across the globe following the illegal trades of precious minerals, counterfeit drugs, endangered species and even people. In this series, and with all her other work, Nelufar gains the trust of her interviewees which enabled her to push for deeper insightful interviews that translate powerfully on screen. This trust enables her to explore and understand the actions and reasoning of characters often with polar opposite opinions including corrupt politicians and human traffickers without judgement or preconceived opinions.
An early pioneer of the subject of food ethics and suitability, Nelufar presented Food Exposed with Nelufar Hedayat which examined how our eating habits were impacting the world. The 8-part series, made for Fusion, saw her explore the journeys our food makes, the processes that go into this ever-growing market and what the growing demand costs the planet and the people growing our food.
Her other work includes Story of God with Morgan Freeman (Nat Geo) as well as films for a range of other broadcasters including Vice, The Guardian, Channel 4 and the BBC where she was one of the lead anchors on CBBC’s Newsround harnessing her passion for making news accessible for all. Nelufar has received a plethora of awards and accolades including Correspondent of the year Gracie Award from the Alliance for Women in Media and was invited by The Pope to join Summit of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences’ and to be signatory on the Resolution on Organ Trafficking, (ratified by the Council of Europe) following her film on the subject.
She currently works closely with Doha Debates as a correspondent, bringing the debate topics and themes to global audiences across digital platforms. She hosts her own shows including the post-debate show as well as the podcast Course Corrections and digital show #DearWorldLive each of which take the conversations further with Nelufar interviewing and speaking students, thinkers, writers, policymakers, and activists and engaging with issues that affect the audiences across the world.